Let's hope some real good comes from this

The Summit for American Prosperity: Washington and Metro Areas Working Together

Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program will host The Summit for American Prosperity: Washington and Metropolitan Areas Working Together. The event will take place at the Washington Hilton Wednesday evening, June 11 and Thursday, 12, 2008.


This Summit launches the next phase of our Blueprint for American Prosperity: Unleashing the Potential of a Metropolitan Nation, an ambitious, multi-year initiative to build long-term U.S. prosperity by reinvigorating the federal role in promoting the health and vitality of America's metropolitan areas. This Summit will build on the Blueprint's earlier efforts to demonstrate that the nation's assets are concentrated in our metro areas, and are the vital engines of the U.S. and global economy.

Among those who will be addressing the Summit are:

* Michael Porter, Professor, Harvard Business School
* Henry Cisneros, Chairman, CityView
* Strobe Talbott, President, Brookings
* Michael Mandel, Chief Economist, Business Week
* James A. Johnson, Vice Chairman, Perseus LLC
* James D. Robinson III, General Partner, RRE Ventures and Former Chairman & CEO, American Express Company
* Michael Crow, President, Arizona State University
* Hilary Pennington, Director of Special Initiatives, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
* Ron Sims, County Executive, King County, WA (Seattle)
* Rob Atkinson, President, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
* James Traub, Contributing Writer, New York Times Magazine
* Tom Darden, President, Cherokee Investment Partners

Bruce Katz, Vice President and Director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings will unveil an exciting new framework for improving the federal partnership with states, localities, universities, other non profit leaders and the private sector - a true Blueprint for American Prosperity - to better leverage the great assets of our metropolitan areas.

Alan Berube, Howard Wial, Rob Puentes and Bruce Katz will introduce policy recommendations and specific, federal "legislatable" ideas to build this new partnership, in such key areas as: infrastructure, workforce housing, education, energy, and innovation.

We are excited about The Summit for American Prosperity and the timing of this important discussion. The next Administration and Congress will confront increasingly complex global and domestic realities, and their improved partnership with local and regional leaders and the private sector will be essential to helping our nation adapt and prosper in this new environment.

In short, the Summit will be a valuable opportunity to place this important discussion on the national stage and to strengthen our collective efforts to promote reforms.

We also hope you will share this information with others and join hundreds of corporate, civic, political, academic and philanthropic leaders from around the country to discuss this new policy agenda.